Faced with lawsuits and bad publicity in their home country, U.S. private prison corporations are lobbying to enter Canada -- and the Canadian government is considering allowing them, news reports indicate. (Alamy photo) | Alamy

Faced with lawsuits and bad publicity in their home country, U.S. private prison corporations are lobbying to enter Canada -- and the Canadian government is considering allowing them, news reports indicate.

CSC officials last May urged Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to discuss Canada’s “interest in considering the privatization of penitentiary services on a limited basis,” according to a memo Bloomberg obtained under a freedom of information request.

The company is the target of a class-action lawsuit alleging that one of its youth facilities in Louisiana was plagued by sexual abuse. The suit alleges that guards engaged in sex with inmates -- who at that facility range in age from 13 to 22 -- and smuggled drugs into the prison. The facility allegedly denied health care and education services to inmates as well. A federal judge described the Geo Group prison as "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts."

The other prison company confirmed by The Guardian to be lobbying Ottawa is Management and Training Corporation (MTC), which has had its own share of controversies. Following the escape of two convicted murderers from a Kingman, Arizona MTC facility, the the state of Arizona found the facility’s alarms were not functioning properly, and the company hadn’t carried out maintenance on them in more than a year.

MTC’s marketing director, Mike Murphy, confirmed to the Guardian the company is interested in Canada.

"When the Conservative government came into play we saw some headlines that they may be looking at PPPs [private-public partnerships] and talking about doing some stuff with the private sector through their [corrections] infrastructure renewal," he told the Guardian.

With budgets under strain in recent years, many U.S. states have shelved plans for new prisons, cut the number of prisoners in custody, and even closed some facilities. That has prompted prison companies to look elsewhere for new expansion opportunities.

Some prison corporations have responded with more aggressive business strategies. Corrections Corporation of America, the U.S.’s largest private prison operator, recently sent a letter to 48 U.S. state governments offering to buy up their prisons -- in exchange for keeping them at least 90-per-cent full.

It’s this sort of tension between prison profits and the criminal justice system that has many critics of prison privatization worried. In a recent investigative report, the New Orleans Times-Picayune asserted that the profit motive in Louisiana’s prison system was behind its harsh criminal sentences, and contributed to the state apparently having the highest incarceration rate of any jurisdiction in the developed world.

For its part, Geo Group built the Miramichi Youth Detention Facility in New Brunswick, but had its contract for the facility taken away in the 1990s after public protests against the incarceration of youth for profit. The company still has a maintenance contract for the prison.

The Conservative government in Ottawa has passed a slate of tough-on-crime laws since coming into power in 2006, the most notable being the omnibus crime bill that passed through Parliament in March of this year. Critics fear the mandatory minimum sentences in the new laws could increase the prison population and prompt the construction of new prisons.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said earlier this month that, so far, the prison population has not seen a spike as a result of the new laws. (However, it’s worth noting that the omnibus crime bill hasn’t been law long enough to make much of an impact on prison population statistics.)

“We have no appetite to pursue fully privatised prisons,” Julie Carmichael, a spokeswoman for Toews, told Bloomberg in an email. The government “has no intention of building new prisons, nor have we built a single new prison to date.”

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Key Changes In Crime Bill

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With files from The Canadian Press.
(CP/Alamy)

Provides the government, through the minister of Public Safety, more discretion to decide if a Canadian imprisoned abroad can transfer home to serve his or her sentence. (Getty)

Introduces new measures to allow victims of terrorist acts to sue responsible individuals, groups or state sponsors in Canadian courts. (Alamy)

Gives the Immigration minister new powers to deny work permits to foreigners based on the rationale they may be exploited. (Alamy)

Provides victims of crime more say in parole decisions under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Increases size of parole board by 25 per cent. (Alamy)

Reduces sharply the use of conditional sentences, such as house arrest, for a variety of property and other offences. (Jupiter Images)

Changes the pardons system and makes certain ex-convicts, such as some sex offenders and repeat offenders, ineligible for life. Essentially doubles the waiting period for pardon eligibility to five years for summary offences and 10 years for indictable offences. Replaces the term "pardon" by "record suspension." (Alamy)

Sets tougher penalties for young offenders, including mandatory consideration of adult sentences and possible publication ban removal for violent crimes. Expands the definition of violent crime to include reckless acts that don't actually cause harm. (Alamy)

Establishes new mandatory minimum sentences and longer maximums for sex crimes against minors, including the addition of two new offences related to grooming or luring minors. (Alamy)

Provides new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences related to production and distribution, including mandatory sentences for growing as few as six pot plants. Doubles maximum sentences to 14 years from seven. Offers potential exemptions for those entering drug treatment programs. (Getty)